How to Lay Out a Room Design for Free

Designing a room layout can be challenging without good software, but it's really easy to do on graph paper. All you have to do is grab some measurements, do a little drawing, a little cutting and you will be able to move around the furniture to your heart's content. You might feel like you are back in grammar-school art class, but it will save you a lot of time by not having to physically move furniture into different layouts.

• 1

  Take measurements of the perimeter of the room you wish to design. Do a rough sketch of the room and pencil in the various measurements. Add the windows, fireplaces, doors, closets, etc., which will affect where you can put furniture.

• 2

  Transfer the drawing of the room to a clean piece of graph paper by scaling the measurements down so that every square represents 6 inches. Translate the measurement numbers into inches for an accurate drawing. Use a calculator to speed up the conversions, if necessary, by dividing each measurement by six to get the number of squares.

• 3

  Label the different parts of the room, leaving space for doors to swing open and for walkways in the room, so that you can lay out the furniture with more details in mind.

• 4

  Measure each piece of furniture for its width and length and list them on a separate piece of paper. Draw the pieces on a new piece of graph paper, making sure you get the ratios right. Cut out the individual pieces of furniture.

• 5

  Place the paper drawings of the furniture on the graph-paper drawing of the room. Play around with different layouts, keeping in mind the different heights of the furniture and windows, etc., until you find a layout that you like and that works with the measurements.